Andalucian Parliament building. Falcon had prepared a statement on his investigation, which had been incorporated into the official press release, to be delivered by Comisario Elvira. Falcon and Juez del Rey were attending the conference, but only to answer any questions on which Elvira didn't have the specific information. They were told to keep their replies to an absolute minimum.
The conference lasted about an hour and was a subdued affair. Elvira had just reached the point where he was looking to wrap up the event when a journalist at the back stood up.
'A final question for Inspector Jefe Falcon,' he said. 'Are you satisfied with this result?'
A brief silence. A cautionary look from Elvira. A woman leaned forward in the front row to get a good look at him.
'Experience tells me I might have to be,' said Falcon. 'It is the nature of all murder investigations that, the more time passes, the less chance there is that fresh discoveries will be made. However, I would like to tell the people of Seville that I, personally, am not satisfied with this outcome. With each act, terrorism reaches new depths of iniquity. Humanity now has to live in a world where people have been prepared to abuse a population's vulnerability to terrorism in order to gain power. I would have liked to have provided the ultimate resolution to this crime, which would have been to bring everyone, from the planners to the man who planted the device, to justice. We have only been partially successful, but, for me, the battle does not end with this press conference, and I want to assure all Sevillanos that I, and my squad, will do everything in our power to find all the perpetrators, wherever they may be, even if it takes me the rest of my career.' From the end of the press conference until 10.30 p.m. Falcon was in the Jefatura, catching up on the monumental load of paperwork that had accumulated in the five days of investigation. He went home, took a shower and changed, and was ready for the evening transmission to Yacoub when Gregorio came round at 11 p.m.
Gregorio was nervous and excited.
'It's been confirmed, from several different sources, that three separate cells are on the move. A group left Valencia last night by car, a married couple left from Madrid, in a transit van, early this morning and another group left from Barcelona, some together, some alone, at various times between Friday lunchtime and early this morning. They all seem to be heading for Paris.'
'Let's see what Yacoub makes of it,' said Falcon.
They made contact and exchanged introductions.
'I have no time,' wrote Yacoub. 'I have to leave for Paris on the 11.30 flight and it will take me more than an hour to get to the airport.'
'Any reason?'
'None. They told me to book my usual hotel in the Marais and that I would receive my instructions once I arrived.'
Falcon asked about the three cells activated in Spain since Friday, all heading for Paris.
'I've heard nothing. I have no idea if my trip is connected.'
'What about the 'hardware'?'
'Still nothing. Any more questions? I have to leave now.'
Gregorio shook his head.
'When you were taken to the GICM camp for your initiation, you wrote about a wall of books-the car manuals. Have you remembered anything about them? It seems a curious thing to have.'
'They were all four-wheel-drive vehicles. I remember a VW insignia and a Mercedes. The third book was for Range Rover and the last I had to check my memory of the insignia on the internet. It was Porsche. That's it. I will try to make contact from Paris.'
Gregorio got up to leave, as if he'd just wasted his time.
'Any thoughts on that?' asked Falcon.
'I'll talk to Juan and Pablo, see what they think.'
Gregorio let himself out. Falcon sat back in his chair. He didn't like this intelligence work. Suddenly everything was moving around him at an alarming pace, with great urgency, but in reaction to electronic nods and winks. He could see how people could go mad in this world, where reality came in the form of 'information' from 'sources', and agents were told to go to hotels and wait for 'instructions'. It was all too disembodied for his liking. He never thought he'd hear himself say it, but he preferred his world, where there was a corpse, pathology, forensics, evidence and face-to-face dialogue. It seemed to him that intelligence work demanded the same leap of faith as religious belief and, in that respect, he'd always found himself in a twilight world, where his belief in a form of spirituality couldn't quite extend itself to the recognition of an ultimate being.
The three notebooks he'd filled during the course of the investigation sat on his desk, next to a pile of paperwork he'd brought home with him. He took a sheet of paper from the printer and opened up the first notebook. The date was 5th June, the day he'd been called to view Tateb Hassani's corpse on the rubbish tip outside Seville. He saw that he'd semiconsciously written El Rocio next to the date. Perhaps there'd been something on the radio. It was always reported when the Virgen del Rocio had been successfully brought out of the church and paraded on Pentecost Monday. As he doodled out the shape of one of the painted wagons that was so typical of the pilgrimage, he realized how El Rocio had become almost as important an event to tourists as Semana Santa and the Feria. It had always drawn thousands from all over Andalucia, and they had now been joined by hundreds of tourists, looking for another Sevillano experience. His brother, Paco, had even started providing horses and accommodation on his bull-breeding farm for an agency specializing in more luxurious forms of the pilgrimage, with magnificent tents, champagne dinners and flamenco every night. There were luxury versions of everything these days. There was probably a caviar version of the walk to Santiago de Compostela. Decadence had even got into the pilgrimage trade. Below the drawing of the wagon he wrote: El Rocio. Tourists. Seville.
More flipping through the random notes and jottings. When he did this he couldn't help but think of artists and writers with their notebooks. He loved it, in the great retrospective of an artist, when the museum showed the notebook sketches, which eventually became the great, and much recognized, painting.
A single line he'd written on the reverse side of a sheet of paper caught his eye: drain the resources of the West through increased security measures, threaten economic stability by attacking tourist resorts in southern Europe and financial centres in the north: London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan. Who had said that? Was it Juan? Or perhaps it was something Yacoub had written?
There was a map of Spain on the wall next to his desk and he crabbed across to it on his chair. Was Seville the obvious place to bring explosives together to launch attacks on the tourist infrastructure of Andalucia? Granada was more central. The Costa del Sol was more accessible from Malaga. Then he remembered the 'hardware'. To create panic in a tourist resort needed nothing more than a pipe bomb packed with nuts, bolts and nails, so why go to the trouble of special hardware and procuring hexogen? Back to the desk. Another note: hexogen-high brisance = explosive power, shattering effect. Exactly. Hexogen had been chosen for its power. A small quantity did a lot of damage. And with that thought his mind slipped back to the important buildings of Andalucia: the regional parliament in Seville, the cathedrals in Seville and Cordoba, the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada. Pablo was right, it would be impossible to get a bomb anywhere near those places with the whole region on terrorist alert.
His computer told him it was midnight. He hadn't eaten. He wanted to be out and amongst people. Normally he would have relied on Laura to fill his Saturday night, but that was over now. He'd allowed himself that morbid thought and it led him back to Ines's funeral. Her parents, lost as children, in the sea of people. He snapped out of it and was walking aimlessly from his study to the patio when he remembered Consuelo's call. He hadn't expected her to be so thoughtful. She'd been the only person to call him about Ines. Not even Manuela had done that. He dug out his mobile. Was this a good time? He retrieved her number, punched the call button, let it ring twice and cut it off. It was Saturday night. She'd be in the restaurant, or with her children. Two or three images of their sexual encounters shot through his mind. They'd been so intense and satisfying. He had a rush of physical and chemical desire. He punched the call button again and before it even started ringing he could hear himself trying to smother his desire with inept small talk. He cut the line again. This was all too much for one week: he'd split up with a girlfriend, his ex-wife had been murdered and now he wanted to rekindle a love affair which had burnt out after a matter of days nearly four years ago. Consuelo had called him about Ines as a friend would. It was nothing more than that.
It was warm outside and there was life in the streets. Human beings were resilient creatures. He walked to El Arenal and found the Galician bar, which did wonderful octopus and served wine in white porcelain dishes. As he
